


Homeward

by nagia



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, F/M, fuck the me3 ending, this fic was just an excuse for Garrus and kittens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-08 12:32:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1132686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagia/pseuds/nagia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the destruction of the Reapers, Shepard and Garrus visit Earth -- including Admiral Shepard's Apartment Of Cats.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homeward

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leviathanmirror](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leviathanmirror/gifts).



If there was one thing Shepard had not expected, it was a trip to earth so soon after building her house on Rannoch. But first Hackett had called, and then her mother, and here she was. They'd caught a commercial ship, not because the Normandy was out of reach — with Joker and EDI at its helm, it was never truly out of reach — but because they were with the Geth Migrant Fleet, dispensing miracles.

Earth had been beautiful, the first time she saw it through the shuttle's viewscreens. Blue and green, intersected constantly by flickering city lights, the lights of ships. It had looked a little as if a bucket of stars had fallen into a river. It wasn't quite so beautiful anymore — scarred, pitted, entire regions dark. Two years on, and Vancouver looked half a war zone. Construction everywhere, less light pollution, fewer vehicles zooming around, fewer lights on.

Garrus reached over and squeezed her shoulder.

"Khar'shan is worse," she said.

"The batarians aren't in this shuttle." A pause, and then a trace of a wry smile in his voice as he added, "Not that I'd comfort them if they were."

* * *

She stepped out of Hackett's office and wound through the halls of Alliance Vancouver. She hadn't worn the uniform in more than a year, but a few saluted as she passed. She didn't return the salutes, only continued through a maze she'd thought she knew. But the construction had made its way inside most of Vancouver's large buildings. Hallways she'd once walked under Vega's supervision had been blocked off, elevators only ran to select floors.

It took her ten extra minutes to make her way to the entrance, pass through the security check again, and leave.

Garrus was waiting for her with their rented car. He'd gone for a sleek blue one. Then again, Garrus seemed magnetically drawn to blue.

"They drive on the wrong side of the road here," he said.

Shepard grinned, stretched up to kiss the side of his mandible. "I knew you liked it when I drove into oncoming traffic."

"Let's not go chasing down rogue Spectres in a cab again."

Shepard looked down at her leg, the bad one. Miranda had done her best, but it would be another year or more before Shepard chased anyone anywhere.

"Come on," she said. "Time to go see Admiral Shepard's House Of Cats. Have you ever even seen a cat?"

"I've been looking forward to it."

* * *

Hannah Shepard's home turned out to be a flat in what had once been the downtown area. It wasn't downtown anymore — the city was busiest around Alliance HQ, the rebuilt hospitals, and the financial quarter. But Hannah Shepard probably had a killer view of the city reconstruction from her sixty-third story flat.

The door opened to admit them to a two-level penthouse with two walls of windows. Rather than the indoor garden or waterfall that Anderson had favored, Admiral Shepard had filled her home with art. It was mostly contemporary human sculpture, but Shepard saw a few pieces with the sweeping lines that marked it as classical turian. Replicas, no doubt.

"Mom," Shepard said, and her mother smiled.

She looked stretched thin, skin pale and dark rings under her eyes. But that she was happy, Shepard had no doubt. They were alike in that: happiest when they were striving. Neither of them had never had any desire to rest on their laurels.

"Mother, this is Garrus Vakarian. Garrus, this is my mother, Admiral Hannah Shepard."

"Good to finally meet you," her mother replied. She reached forward with her right hand.

Garrus reached out, clasping the Admiral's hand and giving it a firm shake. Shepard suspected he'd picked up the gesture in C-SEC. "Likewise."

Shepard turned to look out the windows again. "So, how's the reconstruction treating you? We've heard it was grueling, and when you called..."

In response, her mother smiled and waved a hand at the windows. "It's busy. We're working on re-building some of the in-city residential areas."

"What's with the windows? Can't tear yourself away?" Shepard watched a shuttle pass by, carrying materials.

"Says the woman who didn't even email or call me when it turned out she wasn't dead." But her mother crossed to the couch. "I was born further down the coast, in San Francisco. But rebuilding this place — it's starting to feel mine."

A white and gray bundle of fur jumped into her mother's lap and made an inquisitive 'Mrrt?' noise. The cat looked up at her mother, then looked over at Shepard with eyes as clear a blue as Garrus's. She opened her mouth in a silent meow, then curved herself around the Admiral's lap and began to purr. She was either so fat or so fluffy that her belly seemed to slump half off her owner's legs.

"That's a cat, huh?" Garrus tilted his head. "Funny little creature. Shepard says they're predators."

"Some are. The feline family has some of Earth's fiercest predators. I'm sure you've heard of tigers and lions."

"I saw a lion in an exhibition of Earth wildlife, once," Garrus says. "But it's hard to imagine that killing anything."

That drew a laugh from her mother. "No, Dori's a regular housecat. If we lived in a more rural area, she might kill mice or small animals, but she's a lazy city cat. Would you like to pet her?"

"I'm," Garrus paused, looking down at his hands for a moment. He seemed to change his mind about what he'd been about to say. In a dry tone, he asked, "Sure. Worst she can do is go after my eye, right?"

The Admiral looked over to Shepard, her brows drawn up in an expression that said, very clearly, that she wasn't about to question her daughter in a permanent partnership with a turian — but did she have to find a neurotic?

"Maybe start with something smaller. Harmless," Shepard said, suppressing a grin. Garrus was a worst-case-scenarioist, and she wasn't about to change that. "Dori's had kittens, hasn't she?"

"And she's trying to escape them." Dori looked up at them all with the kitty version of panic. She let out a faint aiou of protest as Hannah Shepard lifted her from her lap. "Let's go see."

* * *

The kittens were on the upstairs level, poking curiously around the back rooms. There were enough boxes and hiding spaces to keep the kittens occupied, though had they been hungry, Shepard was sure they'd have made sure the whole house knew. There were six of them, all varying shades of white or cream with smoke-gray markings.

Hannah Shepard eyed the kittens before finally picking up a white and gray kitten who had decided to leap from one of the half-covered boxes and was making its way to investigate the new people.

"This is Goliath," her mother said. "He loves laser pointers and omni-tools. Don't activate yours while he's around, or he'll try and climb you to get at it. Goliath, say hello to Garrus."

Golitah looked into Garrus's eyes and mimicked his mother with a chirpy _aiou_.

Garrus reached out for the cat, but he broke the eye contact with the kitten. Instead, he was looking at Shepard. One mandible flared in a smile, and Shepard really hoped he wasn't thinking what she was thinking.

But he held onto the little ball of white fur — which immediately started purring — without saying anything. Goliath seemed content to stare at Garrus before stretching up to sniff at his mandible. After a moment, Goliath batted a paw against Garrus's mandible, and Garrus jerked his head back, chuckling.

Goliath meowed in reply.

"We don't have anything like them on Palaven," Garrus said. "A few fish, maybe, but everything on the surface has a carapace."

"Did you beg your dad for a giant beetle?"

"Nah. I held out for a kakliosaur."

That drew a laugh from Shepard. Garrus's mandible twitched again, before he turned back to the Admiral. "And what are you planning on doing with these kittens? You can't be thinking of having seven cats."

"With Dori and Naveen, I'd have nine," her mother admitted. "No, I'd planned on letting some local families adopt them. The reconstruction's far enough along that I think a few people will want pets for their kids at Christmas."

"Garrus, no," Shepard said, "we live on Rannoch."

"And we're thinking about adopting. We've got that mass effect barrier around the house so we can have gardens. Why not a cat first? See if we can successfully raise an animal before we try our hands at people."

The problem was, it was a logical suggestion. Her reluctance to bring anything not native to Rannoch was less rational, though probably appreciated by the geth and the quarians.

Shepard looked at the kitten in Garrus's arms. He chucked Goliath under the chin with one finger, setting him to purring even louder. And sighed. She knew when she was beaten.

"All right. Mom, when it comes time to adopt them..."

Her mother only smiled widely, and Shepard realized that the operative sentences she'd heard were 'thinking of adopting' and 'try our hands at people.'

Liara and Javik were never going to let her hear the end of this.


End file.
